


let me show you the way (to my heart)

by gousan



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 05:21:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10633089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gousan/pseuds/gousan
Summary: In which Jeno is too nice for his own good, and haunted house's ghosts do actually have a specific duty of their own.





	

Jeno doesn't like ghosts, scary stories, or anything related to the realms of supernatural. It's not that he's scared of it. Sure, most of the times they don't look very pleasing to the eyes and Jeno more than often feels his stomach churn at the sight of anything horror-related, but he knows very well that the depictions of it are pretty much exaggerated and all the horror craze in the medias rely heavily on jumpscares. Still, there's a vague feeling of dread that Jeno couldn't really put his finger on it which drives him far enough to the safe sideline away from the things average people can not see.

Donghyuck, though, doesn't give two shits about people's preference. More specifically, Jeno's preference. Which is why Jeno is now sitting quietly at the dark corner of a dead end in his class' haunted house, waiting to scare away anyone who happen to walk into his alley.

Jeno yawns. It has been almost twenty minutes since the last person he had chased away. Rather than scaring them, Jeno's main purpose is actually to navigate them back to the right path, to Donghyuck's alley, where they can find the way out since his alley is basically a dead end. _What kind of ghost is this_ , he asks, but Donghyuck just pats his shoulder and says _Je-no-fun-ghost_ , so here he is, a helpful ghost in a full white, tattered attire complete with a faceful of baby powder and hair messier than any gossips Jaemin could ever spill. Jeno thinks he looks like a bootleg version of the little ghost boy from The Ring.

There are sounds of footsteps near him and he straightens up, ruffling his hair just in case he doesn't look scary enough, but then a loud scream erupts and he slumps again. Donghyuck must be having the time of his life, judging by the high-pitched cackling he faintly hears. Donghyuck's guarding the exit door, so of course he gets to scare everyone. He's extra good at it, to boot. More footsteps are coming near the intersection between him and Donghyuck, but, _ah, they'll go to Donghyuck_ , so Jeno closes his eyes and expect more screams to be heard.

What he doesn't expect is, however, two round brown eyes staring confusedly at him.

Blame it on his groggy half-bored half-sleepy state, but his first impulse is to stare back at those eyes. Jeno's first thought is, _wow, those are such pretty, sparkly eyes even in this darkness_. His second thought is, _wait, weren't I supposed to be alone?_

He jumps abruptly, making the boy in front of him look at him in terror and almost drop the phone in his hand. His face practically screams confusion all around, and Jeno thinks same, before he remembers and mentally smacks himself in the head. The damage has been done, though, and the boy with pretty eyes is standing as stiff as a rock, but he's supposed to be a ghost, goddamit, so Jeno musters all the confidence and dignity he still has in him and mutters a weak, "Boo."

The boy in front of him wears an even more dumbfounded expression. Jeno feels like he's dying. If there's a chance to just evaporate and be gone, he thinks now is a good time to do it.

"Um," the boy starts, and Jeno feels his heart do a backflip out of shame. "Are you.. one of the ghosts here?"

Yes, is what Jeno wants and means to say, but he's only able to produce an incomprehensible growl that sounds kind of like "Ghurgh." At least he can still make a sound.

"Oh." The boy deadpans, and Jeno sinks even lower. He brings himself to look at him and wow, his eyes aren't the only pretty part of his face. In fact, his whole face is pretty, even when it's only luminated by the dim light of his phone screen. And woah, is his hair red?

"That was pretty good, though," he says. "I mean, that 'boo'. It's suitable for scaredy cats like me."

Now it's Jeno's turn to look at him like he has grown a second head. This is the first someone has ever complimented him like that, let alone when he's a ghost who fails at his job so hard because of daydreaming. But the boy seems sincere and there's a cute smile plastered over his face and, ba-dump. Jeno can only offer a weak smile and a thank you at him.

Jeno doesn't say anything after that, and neither do the boy. There's an apparent worry line forming on the boy's face, visible to Jeno even under the poor lightning. It kinda reminds Jeno of a sad red fox Jisung showed him on his phone yesterday.

"Excuse me, but this seems to be a dead end." The boy politely speaks at Jeno. "Can you tell me where I can exit from, maybe?" 

Oh. Right. That's his job.

Jeno laughs awkwardly. Since chasing him until he runs into Donghyuck's alley seems impossible now, he settles in giving verbal instructions. It shouldn't be hard.

"Yeah, sorry. First, just walk straight from here. Then, go right, until you find the intersection that leads you here. At the intersection, walk straight and then go right, and then go left." Jeno explains. "It's not that far." he assures him. The boy, however, looks even more perplexed than he does before.

"Does it really have that much turns?" He asks.

Jeno nods. "Well, it's not that much. There are fake turns that can lead you into dead ends, but it's pretty easy to follow?"

The boy grimaces. "Don't laugh at me," he says, face turning into a shade of red. "but I don't know how to differentiate between right and left."

Jeno gapes. The boy coughs awkwardly. This is his first time hearing something like that, since he has been able to do that since he was a toddler, but he thinks it somewhat fits the image of the boy. It's kinda cute. Wait. What.

"Do you want me to show you the way?"

Jeno blurts out an invitation in a second. The boy gleams, and Jeno tries to justify his words by saying that of course, he's a navigator-ghost or whatever that is and it's his duty, but he can't really find a reason to justify the tingling in his chest when the boy smiles like that.

"Of course, lead the way!"

With that Jeno walks alongside him, sharing space with each other in the narrow space of the dark hallway. Jeno shivers everytime his arm brushes against the boy, whose name turns out to be Huang Renjun. He's from class 2-A, which is understandable why Jeno doesn't know him since he's in 2-E, and that he came here with Mark Lee, his senior at the school committee but got separated when Mark's flashlight died and he mistook right as left at Mark's instruction to walk left.

"Wait, is this really okay for you to do? I mean, you're a ghost here, after all." Renjun asks, after they emerge out from a forest of faux spiderweb that Jeno briefly remembers setting it up. "Won't this get in the way of your work?"

"Nah," Jeno answers. "My alley leads to nowhere, so it's my job to chase people all the way from there until they reach the intersection and pick the other alley."

Renjun lets out a small laugh, eyes glinting when he looks at Jeno. "So, a navigator ghost? No, a tour guide ghost?"

Jeno almost holds his breath at the sight of his smirk. "Kind of."

"But still, are you really okay with this? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who gets lost and stumbles at your dingy alley," Renjun questions.

"No, no. No other people are allowed to enter before the previous ones exit. So right now, I'm fully yours." Jeno explains. The last sentence sounds kind of off in his tongue, the kind of thing that makes you bite your tongue and wishes you could take it back. 

Renjum hums. "Do you walk them like this, too?"

"Chasing them is the first and most common option. You're a special case, though," this time, Jeno actually bites his tongue. "Since all of the previous guests know their right and left." He adds, hoping to make the dryness in his throat go away.

" _Rude_ ," Renjun playfully pinches his arm. But then, his fingers find a way to encircle themselves at Jeno's wrist. Renjun looks away. "I'm a special case, right," rather than a question, it feels like a hanging statement that's waiting for a confirmation.

"Right," Jeno echoes. Renjun's hand is still circling his wrist, and Jeno doesn't know whether if he's capable of saying anything without messing things up.

The hallway they go through is eerily quiet, the low hum of the air conditioner barely noticeable. There are no other students posing as a ghost here since it was designed to trick people's nerve with a false sense of security, to make them think they're safe in this reserved space before Donghyuck mauls them with his explosive jumpscare right before the exit door. In Jeno's opinion, this honestly is the scariest part of their haunted house. Nothing good comes out of something this quiet. 

"Aren't you scared?" Jeno asks, because even if he's not the bravest person in the world, Renjun admitted himself that he is a scaredy cat.

"No," the reply is hushed, a mere whisper even in this silence. "You're here with me."

The air conditioner next to Jeno stops buzzing, the deafening silence indicating that they're already near Donghyuck's location. Both of them too, have gone mute since their small talk session ended. Renjun seemingly too focused on the road and Jeno focusing himself to think about things other than Renjun's slender fingers latching on his wrist and the almost inaudible answer he doesn't know how to respond at. He hopes Renjun can't hear his heartbeat.

They arrive at the corner just before Donghyuck's alley, and Jeno bid him goodbye. Renjun carefully takes his hand away from Jeno's wrist, its remaining warmth lingering at his skin. Jeno's wrist feels too light to be right.

"Here it is. Just go straight from here. Beware of the surprise there, though. Wait, you can do that, right?" teases Jeno. 

Renjun fakes a pout and smacks him in the arm. "Shush, I do."

The snaggletooth on Renjun's left gum shows when he smiles, and a part of Jeno's heart swells at the sight of it.

"So I guess this is goodbye?" Jeno asks, carefully placing his gaze at Renjun's nose. Eye contact is no good, and Jeno doesn't know if he can handle looking at his lips, but avoiding his face would be even more awkward.

"I guess so."

Renjun purses his lips, and waves at Jeno. Just when Jeno is about to take a step forward, back to the crappy alley where he has to look out for another hour with possibly no other people to scare slash guide at, a warm grip settles on his arm.

Renjun, with his right hand clinging into Jeno's torn sleeve, beams as if he's being illuminated by thousands of stars. Specks of pink sprawl on his cheeks like a stardust. Even in the middle of darkness, he glows. Jeno's not so sure if a haunted house is supposed to make your heart wrench in this particular way.

"Thank you, Mr. Kind Ghost."

 

 

****

 

 

That night, even when he's laying down on his bed after Donghyuck and Jaemin berated him for not having even one successful scarefest story to tell, the warmth in his arm and chest never goes away.

**Author's Note:**

> i want to go to a haunted house. maybe next time. 
> 
> thank you for reading!


End file.
